Tag: pitching

What’s the point of a proposal? Why use sites like Angel Investment Network? Why not just send your full business plan to people you want to invest?

Well, for a start, not everyone has the contact details of a large number of investors just sat in their inbox. Networking/Connection sites like Angel Investment Network hold the key to advertising your latest business venture to thousands of prospective investors so that you can find the right ones to suit the nature of the project. That sounds a little sales-y, I know, but it’s important to understand in order to realise the significance of the short proposal instead of the full-blown business plan.

When you’re marketing an idea to thousands of people, not just in the fundraising community but anywhere, you cannot simply take it for granted that people will actually take time to consider your idea; in any marketplace thousands upon thousands of ideas are competing to grab the attention of the onlookers. Precedence is not always, and certainly not necessarily, defined by merit, but rather by the ability to capture attention.

Don’t think ‘I know my idea is brilliant, so why wouldn’t investors read my business plan? They’d be stupid not to…’ That attitude will help you raise the square root of nothing. Think instead ‘How can I make it so that investors literally cannot wait to get their greedy paws on my business plan and start properly digesting my idea?’

Here’s where your short proposal comes in. It is meant to be pithy and concise. Something that can be easily understood and result in them wanting to know more. It is the first rung on the ladder towards them investing; and that can often be the hardest part – getting them to step onto the ladder. Once they’re on, of course some may fall off on the way to the top, but at least you’re beginning to win them over and it becomes progressively harder for them to get off.

As such you should consider your proposal as a ‘hook’, to use Nir Eyal’s term, or in internet-speak a CTA (call-to-action). In your proposal make them love your idea enough to take the next step. Tell them the best bits. Don’t swamp them in superfluous detail.

It’s funny what working near a beach for 3 weeks will do to one’s ability to keep their blog updated! But I’m back in the office now, back to the grindstone so your weekly dose of pitching/proposal advice is back up and running.

The previous 4 tips have talked in general terms about the ideal structure for your proposal: Tip #1 advised you to put your achievements first, Tip #2 encouraged you to then articulate the problem you solve, Tip #3 how you solve that problem and Tip #4 told you to make it clear how big the market opportunity is.

This week I wanted to talk about tone. How should your pitch come across? Funny? Serious? Detailed? Light?

When I arrived in the office this morning one of my colleagues was bragging about how he had re-written someone’s proposal for them after they had got no interest from investors after 90 days on Angel Investment Network. Now the business wasn’t bad at all, but it wasn’t an Uber or Facebook by any stretch of the imagination. The reason the guy had done so poorly was that the way he had written his proposal was about as exciting as watching paint dry in prison.

My colleague made no drastic changes – the fact of the business and its products (innovative power tools) were beyond his control. And yet his changes resulted in 82 investors contacting the entrepreneur. 82. When previously he’d got zero.

What did he change? He injected some life, some enthusiasm, some excitement into the proposal. The subject matter remained the same, but he gave the proposal a buzz. He infused it with a sense of success just around the corner; and that’s what intrigued the investors.

So give yourself a fighting chance and make sure you strike the right tone…

For no other reason than today is the first day of a new leap year cycle, I’ve decided to add a new feature to this blog. Each week I’m going to write a short post offering easy-to-implement advice on writing a fundraising proposal to investors. There will be a slight steer to benefit those entering proposals on , but I promise that the advice will be easily applied wherever you’re submitting a proposal.

I read hundreds of proposals a day. Literally hundreds of the things in the form of: pitch decks, executive summaries, investment site templates, incubator/accelerator templates, you name it. There’s always more to learn, but by now I’ve got a pretty good idea of what investors love and what they loathe when it comes to fundraising proposals.

So here’s Tip #1 “Never leave the best till last”

Put your most impressive information FIRST.

Investors like the rest of the world read from beginning to end. Well, not quite, often they never reach the end because they get bored. If this happens and you’ve left your most impressive piece of traction till the end, they’ll never know how great your company is. If you want to end on a positive note, simply repeat the positive note with which you started your proposal!

Grab their attention from the start. If you’re using or planning on using Angel Investment Network’s proposal form to showcase your business to prospective investors, this is why they recommend including attention-grabbing details in the ‘Short Summary’ section.

Last Tuesday we held our first fundraising event of the year at the Olswang offices in Holborn. Treated to a complimentary feast of canapés and drinks on the top floor, investors enjoyed pitches from 7 of the hottest UK startups.

James Badgett, Founder of Angel Investment Network, opened the proceedings by calling to mind some of the notable successes from companies who pitched through us in 2015 as well as the general growth of our site.

SuperAwesome, a child-safe marketing platform, completed a funding round with us at a valuation of $3million and subsequently completed a $7million raise at a valuation of $25million. They are now raising at a valuation of $70-100million. That’s a potential return for our investors of 20-30 times in a little over a year!

What3Words, an extraordinary piece of software that’s changing the world’s address system and for whom we filled the seed round, recently received $2million from Intel Capital. They also won the Innovation Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Acquisitions:
As covered in a previous blog post, Uncover were acquired by Velocity resulting in strong, quick returns for our investors.

Draper & Dash, a high-end business intelligence company with an absurdly impressive track record, and PASSNFLY, an innovative airport check-in application, are both under offers for acquisition.

After this introduction, it was fascinating to observe the investors sit forward in their seats and treat the latest cohort of entrepreneurs pitching to their undivided attention!

The future is certainly looking rosy for both investors and entrepreneurs…

This week I wanted to share a resource with you that we normally only give to our customers on Angel Investment Network…

It’s a short e-book that sets out in as simple as possible terms what should be included in the pitch deck that you send or present to prospective investors. An important point to be noted here is that ‘what should be included’ is, more often than not, ALL that should be included. In your pitch deck you’re trying to engage and persuade – to blow minds not to numb them. So the details you give should be the ‘minimum effective dose’ to get investors thinking and wanting to find out more.

The purpose of our site is to connect entrepreneurs and investors, so you might say that teaching people about pitching falls beyond our remit; but you’d be wrong.

1. We like to make sure our entrepreneurs are as well prepared as possible for the result of any connections made through our site (or elsewhere), so that down the line they can write to tell us how successful they’ve become.

2. We see so many bad pitch decks and so many good’uns (literally thousands a week!) that we know what gets investors giddy…

Renowned entrepreneur and angel investor Guy Kawasaki says a pitch only needs 10 slides. This infographic shows which slides you should include when trying to grab angel investors’ attention, make them want to find out more and hopefully write a cheque.

Nathan Gold, founder of The Demo Coach, and Scott Case, co-Founder and CEO of Startup America Partnership, discuss a wide range of pitch do’s and don’ts. Watch as they provide live feedback on pitches from several startups.